Day 4: Paris

The alarm wakes us up at 7, and we all shuffle through the shower to get down for breakfast at 8. Jeff is really not feeling well…he takes some Tums but that doesn’t seem to help him much. He looks quite miserable as we sit in the restaurant and doesn’t eat much breakfast, which consists of bread, croissants, ham, cheese and yogurt. We hop onto the bus around 8:30 to head into the city. The plan is to drop us off at the Champs de Mars by the Eiffel Tower, where we are to meet back at 7 for our champagne picnic. Until then is free time to explore Paris.

Traffic is killer and we make slow progress through the streets of Paris. As we turn one corner, a car tries to sneak past the bus and ends up scraping up against the side of it, taking the car’s hubcap clean off. This makes an awful noise, and gives everyone a start. PJ pulls the bus over and starts talking to the driver and doing paperwork. The French driver certainly seems in no rush, as he starts drawing diagrams and writing down an endless amount of information. We are all getting quite antsy to be on our way, so 20 minutes of sitting later, several people take Tori’s suggestion of just getting off here and finding our own way to Champs de Mars later. Ting, Jeff and I had a plan to do the Eiffel Tower first, but we alter it to hit that up at the end of the day when we go back for the picnic. Instead, we head off towards Notre Dame.

…..lots of dancing, singing, trapeze stuff, and some nudity, which never hurts!

It’s now 10:00 and we have a lot to see today, so we opt to take the metro there. The metro turns out to be really nice (better than London), and we sort of figure out our way, managing to arrive somewhere in the vicinity of our destination. We then manage to use our map and follow the signs to the Cathedral – victory for us!  Notre Dame is very impressive…we go inside and check it out, but opt not to climb the bell tower as we have a lot of walking to do today. I find the presence of a gift shop to be quite amusing. There are also plenty of stations around where one can buy candles and light them for whatever (something we see in nearly every church we visit).

Having seen the Cathedral, we set off for the Louvre. It’s already very hot out! Once we find it, we have our bags scanned at the entrance under the glass pyramid (we have to check them as well) before moving into the blissfully air conditioned lobby. We stand in the ticket line for a while before I realize we can use the automated credit card machine which astoundingly, no one is in line for. It takes me 3 tries but it eventually the machine spits out some tickets. Using our guide pamphlet, we seek out the highlights, since we are doing the Louvre lighting tour in our limited amount of time.

We wander through the Italian painting gallery to get to the Mona Lisa, seeing some impressive stuff, but as the signs and staff keep reminding us, no photo! The room with Mona is absolutely packed with people trying to get close to her. The painting itself is behind glass with a rope keeping people a safe distance back, and there seems to be at least 3 staff members on duty to keep people from taking photos.  Ting says the painting is not as small as he had been led to believe. It’s actually a decent size and is pretty cool to see up close in person.

We continue our tour, seeing Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo, as well as a lot of other nice stuff that I’m sure would be much more interesting to a real art buff. To me, the museum as a whole is more impressive than the individual pieces in it. We also check out the “Medieval Louvre”, which is the excavated remnants of the original castle – pretty cool stuff. We stop the see the upside down pyramid made famous in the Da Vinci Code, before leaving the museum and heading out into the adjoining Tuileries Garden. It’s about 1:30 and freaking hot!

We seek out a table in one of the outdoor cafes where we can enjoy the garden from the shade and get some lunch. I get a ham and cheese baguette thing (gotta love that ham and cheese) and we also discover panache -  a refreshing beverage made from mixing some sort of beer and sprite. It’s good and much appreciated given the weather. Moving on, we wander through the Place de la Concorde and down the Champs de Elysees in the general direction of our next target, the Arc de Triomphe. Along the way, we duck into a few places for brief bits of air conditioning, including the Renault and Toyota showrooms, and the famous Louis Vuitton store, which is apparently so exclusive you’re only allowed to buy two things when you visit. We do the typical tourist thing and wander around gawking at prices – there are staff everywhere but they all ignore us…clearly they’ve been trained not to bother with people who obviously have no intention of buying things.

Reaching the Arc, we take the underground passage over for a close look at the sculptures carved in the pillars and the inscriptions all over it. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, along with its eternal flame, also sits under the Arc.  We also pay 5 Euro for the privilege of climbing 287 stairs up a spiral staircase to the top. Good fun, especially when you are tired and dehydrated, but once at the top we get a pretty cool view of the intersecting streets that come into the famous roundabout, as well as a nice look at the Eiffel Tower. I come away very impressed with this sweet landmark!

We now turn towards our ultimate destination, the Tower. But at this point, I would give just about anything for a drink, so we make an emergency stop at a sidewalk café for beverages and ice cream. We make the (apparent) mistake of ordering drinks, then ice cream when he comes back, which visibly annoys our stereotypical Parisian waiter. I guess the common practice is to order everything at once. We end up getting 2 bills and are a bit choked at the 19% service charge tacked on, but we had been warned about the extra cost of eating on the patio.

We arrive at the Tower about 5:30…that thing is pretty impressive up close! We wait in the ticket queue, ride the elevator up to the 2nd level, then wait again as there is another queue for the lift to the top. We marvel at the view, snap a few photos and get back in line for the ride down – sigh. By the time we get back down to the 2nd level, its 7…which is the time we are supposed to meet for the picnic. Rather than lining up more for the second part down, we decide to hoof it down the stairs, which isn’t too bad. We end up getting over to the busses by 7:15, not bad at all! We immediately get our champagne glasses filled in order to catch up…with real authentic Champagne no less. (we are also told to put a strawberry in the bottom of the glass  – something we had never heard of before, but its good, especially eating the strawberry at the end).

There is another TopDeck tour in Paris so we are doing a joint dinner. The food is awesome – chicken, crab, jumbo prawns, lots of salads…and escargot! The escargot is not bad, but isn’t something I’d go out of my way to eat. Ting doesn’t care for it all. After dinner, we get rid ready to head off to the Cabaret and\or river cruise. I pour some water on my head and change my shirt in an attempt to freshen up a bit. Arriving at the “Paradis Latin” cabaret, the staff is unimpressed with our obvious underdressing (shorts are not really the norm), but they give us a break.

The place is about a 100 person venue, and very fancy. We get a half bottle of wine each included – probably expensive stuff! It’s just Tori, Angie and the three of us at the table, but the table next to us is people from the other tour…there are about six of them and they seem rowdier than our group. Having been instructed to, we all make lots of noise when the host welcomes TopDeck. The show itself is pretty cool…lots of dancing, singing, trapeze stuff, and some nudity which never hurts! It lasts about 90 minutes and we get out about 11.

We end up hitching a ride on the other tour’s bus…and they want to PARTY! Apparently a bunch of them were drinking rather heavily on the cruise and the bus is a madhouse. Some of the girls are dancing in the aisle and insist on going clubbing, but they are told we have to go to the hotel and then they can do whatever they want. (Being that our hotel is far away from everything, they don’t end up going anywhere). The group is somewhat entertaining, but also a bit irritating. There is one guy in particular, Chris I believe, who is loud beyond all belief and annoys pretty much everyone in our tour at some point that night.

Back at the hotel, we have a couple “Hoegaardens” on the patio and chat with some of the people on our tour, attempting to learn a few names. We learn there are a lot of “Gap students” (or “Gappies”) with us  – meaning they are on a year off between high school and university. I guess down under that’s common enough to have a name. It starts raining pretty hard and we retreat inside and up to our room about 1 AM. It’s super hot again, but we are tired so sleeping is not a problem (at least for me). A very long day, but an awesome one!